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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BruceWright" data-source="post: 9747411" data-attributes="member: 7051544">I love Daggerheart and its ethos of "Ask they players questions and incorporate the answers."  I immediately gravitated toward it and have found is useful and fun.But when discussing Daggerheart on a forum, one person was all "Oh, it has Description on Demand?  That's a hard no, I'm out."I hadn't heard the (slightly loaded) term "Description on Demand, but I looked it up and found <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/44891/roleplaying-games/gm-dont-list-11-description-on-demand#:~:text=The%20technique%20we%27re%20talking,is%20Lord%20Fauntleroy%27s%20deepest%20secret%3F" target="_blank">Justin Alexander's blog post</a> declaring this technique one of his "GM DON'Ts."[HR][/HR] Description-on-demand tends to be a fad that periodically cycles through the RPG meme-sphere. When it does so, the general perception seems to be that every player thinks this is the greatest thing since chocolate-dipped donuts. So let’s start there: This is not true. Many players do love it. But many players DO NOT. In fact, a lot of players hate it. There are a significant number of players for whom this is antithetical to the entire reason they want to play an RPG and it will literally ruin the game for them. I’m one of those players. I’ve quit games because of it and have zero regrets for having done so. [HR][/HR] He talks about this being immersion breaking because it requires a shift in the POV.  I disagree, it doesn't necessarily.  Asking a player "what do you see that's different about the bark on these trees?" is just that player imagining seeing something, and describing it. As I said, I was discussing the game online, and I described a scene where an NPC asks a PC where they got their sword.  This felt like a normal interaction that wouldn't be out of place in any D&D game I've played.  But the person, another GM, said "SEE??!  That's Description on Demand.  If I did that at my table there'd be 5 minutes of awkward silence and stammering. You're putting them on the spot.  You can't expect players to be able to do that!"   I'm like "your player can't come up with something like 'from my father' or 'I found it'?" Now I recognize that different tables have different styles.  But reading the Alexandrian blog and with the interaction with this GM, it sounds like to some people this is WRONG WRONG WRONG and if you ask about someone's sword you better be ready for some quitting-the-game level blowback. What have your experiences been?  Do you think it's immersion-breaking? </blockquote>

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